Cynric hadn’t been my victim of choice. The Mother of All Darkness had bound us together because she’d had a plan that needed me distracted and powerful, and the fact that he was sixteen and a virgin, and we didn’t know each other, hadn’t mattered to a being that wanted to drown the world in blood and death. What was one person’s innocence compared to all the death and terror she’d brought over the thousands of years of her existence? If you thought about it that way, what she’d done to Cynric and me was almost kind-almost.
He turned back to me, face still shining with the laughter of joking with the other two men. I hadn’t even heard what they were saying, until he said, “I’m young; I still have growing to do. I’m already taller.”
“Enjoy the height, kid,” Nicky said, “because that’s all that’s going to be bigger.”
“So not,” Cynric said.
“So too,” Nicky said.
Nathaniel walked laughing between the men, carrying the freshly cut and richly scented bread on a serving plate. We all followed the wonderful aroma of the bread like lions scenting a gazelle. My stomach suddenly let me know just how hungry I was.
Zeke joined in the masculine laughter, and even Gina laughed, that higher, pleasant woman’s laugh. The baby joined in, totally not getting the joke, but Chance had already learned that when everyone laughed, you laughed. He’d had a lot of practice at laughing living here. I smiled up at Cynric as he turned back to me. He laughed a lot more here than he had when he first came from Vegas. That was a good thing.
He studied my face, still smiling, but his eyes were trying to read mine. “What?” he asked, and even his voice held that edge of happiness.
I shook my head. “Kiss me, so we can eat.”
He grinned, and it made his face look even younger and less perfect in some ways, but there was the faintest edge of smile lines beginning around his mouth. There was a grown-up in there beginning to carve its way out of the boy; I liked that it was laughter that was beginning to paint its way across his face, not sorrow. I’d had enough of that in my life a few years back. I liked standing here in the kitchen with the smell of breakfast all around, and the sunlight streaming bright and warm, and the man in my arms smiling down at me, while everyone else’s laughter filled the air like some kind of happy perfume.
Cynric bent down that extra height that he’d been teasing Nicky about, and I went up on tiptoe to meet his kiss with mine. Was he taller than he had been last week? It seemed like I was higher up on my toes as his lips found mine. It was a gentle caress of lips, that never quite involved tongue, but there was some body English to it, and chaste was not a word I’d have used for it. I broke the kiss first, letting myself fall back to flat-footed. Cynric blinked at me, his eyes a little unfocused. “Wow,” he whispered. I loved that he was still young enough to say it out loud. It made me smile.
“Good morning, Cynric.”
“Anita,” he said, and he gave me the look, it was his you-know-better look. It wasn’t nearly as good as my look, or Micah’s, but it was getting better.
I gave a little nod, smiled, shook my head, and said, “Good morning, Sin.”
He grinned, and hugged me, tight, fast, not sexual, just-happy. We went to the table, and everyone knew where they sat at breakfast when it was just the eight of us. Chance’s high chair took up the space of a chair, so we were eight, or would be when Micah joined us. I had a moment of wondering if Ares and Bram could smell the food outside on guard duty, and knew they could, but they’d eat after when their replacements clocked in. Micah came into the room smiling, bending over to kiss me, quick, chaste, squeezing the hand that I raised up to him. The sunlight flared in his eyes, bringing out the yellow and shrinking the green around the pupil so his eyes were golden for a moment. The look in those eyes promised that later there’d be kisses that weren’t so chaste. He took his seat beside me, and we held hands under the table. Nathaniel sat on the other side of me, and I gave him my hand under the table, too, so that for a moment the three of us all held hands. Now, we were eight. It wasn’t a bad number to be.
21
MICAH, NATHANIEL, AND I retired to our bedroom. Admittedly, we had a California king bed now, which meant a longer than normal bed to accommodate all those over-six-feet-tall lovers. The length certainly wasn’t for any of the three of us; we were so not over six feet. So, there was room for more than just us, but I didn’t want extra company today and everyone seemed to sense that. Maybe it was the giant-sized dose of tired that hit me after we finished breakfast. I just wanted to wrap my two main squeezes around me, and have them as close to me as possible. Something about seeing so much death makes you want to celebrate life, or drink heavily, and I didn’t drink.
I put my equipment bags on the far side of the bedroom by the big chair that held some of my stuffed toy penguin collection. There was a chance I might get called up if they found the other daytime retreat of the rogue vampires, and I’d have to grab and go. So I didn’t lock the weapons up in their various safes and lockers. The Browning BDM stayed in its bed holster at the headboard for me to grab, and there were actually a couple of other hideaways in the bedroom, but I didn’t usually keep the whole arsenal out like this. There was barely room for the two bags on the far side of the bed and walking room.
I had a choice of stepping on some of the penguins that sat on the floor, or the weapons in the bags. I stepped on the penguins, but I didn’t like doing it. I finally gave up going around to the side of the bed I usually got in on, and decided to go over the footboard, rather than step on any more of the penguins. I know it was silly, and they were just stuffed toys, they couldn’t feel me stepping on them, but… the penguins had been my only comfort objects for years, and they still meant something to me. I had more in storage, because there just wasn’t room for all of the toys once we got the bigger bed, not unless we wanted to be wading through toy penguins, or stepping on them, which upset me, or tripped us, so… I’d given up some of my penguins for a bigger bed and more real people. I never regretted the trade.
Sigmund, my penguin sleeping buddy for years, had pride of place on the chair, but he didn’t sleep in the bed anymore. I had enough living, breathing comfort objects; I didn’t need stuffed animals anymore, now that I had the real thing.
That real thing was already in the bed, one of them lying with the sheet modestly at his waist and the other totally and comfortably naked on top of it. Once upon a time I’d made Nathaniel get under the sheet, but he’d worn me down, or maybe I enjoyed the sight of him so naked, so beautiful, on top of my sheets, in our bed, with Micah tucked in beside him hiding some of his amazingness with that thin bit of sheet. It was just so them.
I stood at the foot of the bed looking at them, and even after three years I still had that urge to say, “Wow, this is all really mine?” Some days I felt luckier than I deserved, and some days I felt just lucky enough.
Micah had taken the tie out of his hair so that it fell in loose, tight curls around his face and shoulders. His hair was that color of brown that starts life as a pale blond and darkens as you get older. He’d confirmed that he’d had a head full of nearly kinky blond hair as a toddler, but now it was a tiny bit less curly and a rich, dark chestnut brown. Nude, his upper body showed the muscle that he fought to put over a bone structure that was almost as delicate as my own. The muscle was there in the swimmer’s wedge of his shoulders, the arms, the chest, down that slender waist where the white sheet made his summer tan look darker, though not too dark. Micah tanned to a point and then just stopped. It was like his skin loved running outside, shirtless. He ran at the indoor track some of the time, but he preferred to run outside, even in temperatures, both cold and hot, that made the rest of us go for the nice, even, no-ice, no-heatstroke indoor track.